donderdag 26 april 2012

Becoming a
Milanese is not always easy. It takes a lot of time and energy. You have to
read many books, visit many things, take many pictures and fight a lot with
your boyfriend because he thinks you take TOO many pictures (he claims I’m even
clicking when I‘m asleep). On top of all this, you also need to process the
whole event in some digestible reading material for those at home who have
decided to remotely become Milanese by reading your blog. An intensive job but
definitely an interesting and a fun one. Sometimes it’s
even downright hilarious. Like last Friday for instance. When
my guide book brought me to a place I had never heard of before and which I
would never have entered if I wouldn’t have been obliged to. First
of all because I don’t like rock. Secondly because I don’t like horror. And
last but not least because I really don’t like shows. Yet, last Friday at 10 p.m.
you could find me on the first row of a spectacle of which I can tell you now
already that it will end up in my top 3 of most enjoyable Milano experiences. I’m
talking, Ladies and Gentlemen, about the Rocky Horror Picture Show!!!!!!

For those of
you who are as ignorant as I am, I will briefly explain the history and the
principle. The Rocky Horror Show is a cult movie from 1975. The movie is some
kind of parody of the B-movie, horror-movie, science fiction-movie genre which
was so successful from the 40’s till the 70’s. In the beginning nobody payed
much attention to the movie but this all changed when fans started to turn up
Friday after Friday dressed as the movie characters themselves. These crazy
fans decided to start playing the movie while the movie was playing! Let me
explain myself. If you see the bisexual transvestite Frank-N-Furter with his
creepy servants Magenta and Riff Raff on the movie screen, you will also see
them standing on the stage of the movie theater itself, playing exactly the
same scene. ﻿﻿﻿

﻿﻿﻿

Throwing rice at the newlyweds!

In the beginning this can create some confusion.
Personally I had the feeling I had been drinking too much and saw everything
twice. But this strange situation it’s not only highly original;
it also creates an atmosphere in the theater which is just indescribable. Also
because the public is equally supposed to become part of the movie spectacle.
This means that if Janet is hiding from the rain under a newspaper, people
sitting in the theater are hiding under newspapers as well. When people in the
movie throw rice at a couple of newlyweds, people in the theater do exactly the
same and throw real rice to the stage. I know. It might all sound a bit
ridiculous but I can assure you that it’s not ridiculous anymore from the moment
you sit in that theater. Because the completely crazy Rocky Horror Show
transforms even the most rigid and stiff person in a singing, dancing and
interactive participant of this most wonderful spectacle.

The Rocky
Horror Pictures Show in the Mexico Movie Theater... Not just a must for people
like me who want to become a Milanese, but simply a must for everyone!

PS: those of
you who decide to sit in front of the theater on the left better make sure to
wear waterproof clothes or bring a good umbrella. Our friends didn’t and became
soaking wet during the first big thunderstorm scene at the beginning of the
movie! Be prepared!

maandag 23 april 2012

There he is! Almost next to Central Station, at
the exact spot where a certain Mister Pirelli in 1872 built his first little
tire factory… I’m talking about the Pirellone. A 127,10 meters high building
which used to be the highest skyscraper in the world (until the 60’s)! Bringing
a tribute to this immense building is apparently one of the 101 activities
which a Milanese should have done at least once in his life, so here we go. I’m
not expecting too much of this little excursion because grey skyscrapers never
really made me go wild. And this one doesn’t even allow you to enter and have a
look from the roof, so I’m afraid this task on my to-do list doesn’t promise
much fun.

I walk to the Piazzale Duca d’Aosta, spot the big,
grey monster and start reading the explanations in my guide book. After a
couple of minutes, the corners of my mouth start curling into a big smile and I
have to say that I actually begin to like this Pirellian colossus which
previously seemed so boring to me. That’s because I learn that this huge tower
provoked the archbishop of Milan by having the nerve of being higher than her
divine highness, the Madonnina! This golden statue of the holy virgin looks
down on Milan from the highest point of the city, which is the top of the Duomo.
And now this metaphysical giant, creature of an architect who declares to have
found inspiration in De Chirico, would look down on the highest Lady of Milan?

“I don’t think so”, said archbishop Montini and
adjusting his miter, he started preparing himself for war by writing a
courteous but inexorable ultimatum letter. Either three floors of the
skyscraper were going to be thrown down, either the brand new pride of Milan
was going to be coronated with… a statue of la Madonnina! Given the fact that
the builders of the Pirellone were peace loving people, it didn’t take them
very long to take the right decision. And so it is that the long, linear
Pirelli is wearing a little golden lady on his head. Not that the divine patron
lady brought him much luck though. In 2002 a small sport aircraft crashed
against the skyscraper causing the death of three people. And yet there are still
people who dare to ask me why I never pray Hail Mary’s…

vrijdag 20 april 2012

Some creepy designers at the Salone. I wouldn't look too far for the Chair-Killer!

Or do we have to look for a veiled suspect?

This week
Milan organizes the Salone del Mobile. This means that the city turns into the
biggest design center in the world and welcomes a colourful, international
crowd of visitors. According to my guide book, I won’t be able to call myself a
Milanese without having plunged into the excentric party event. So there I jump
on a tram in direction of the Tortona district where one can find the beating
heart of the Fuorisalone. Yes, indeed, the FUORIsalone (which means the outside
fair) because that’s where the nicest events are happening. So not in the
normal Salone (or the inside fair if you want) which has an expensive entrance
ticket and addresses itself more to professional visitors, but everywhere else
in Milan (especially at Tortona and Brera). Since this is my first time, I don’t
really know what to expect but everyone around me is in a state of utter
excitement, so I suppose this stuff will be good. And so it is! For those of
you who like an evening full of surprises, this week Milan is the place to be!

Read and look
at all the strange things I found on my way in only a couple of hours: a round matryoshka
from the south of Italy who has decided to conquer the world dressed as a table
lamp; a cook who is stirring a giant pot of polenta in the middle of the
street; artist Flavio Lucchini exposing a number of works of art which
represent a mixture of fashion and burkas and make you think about the power of
clothing; a room full of people getting “rained” by big, dry drops of water; green
aliens which roll playfully over a wooden kitchen in the form of a Swiss
mountain knife; a poor chair who has committed suicide for some obscure reason
(or was it murder?) and last but not least, the most distasteful knife holder I
have ever seen in my life (it won’t become LESS feng shui than this, believe
me).

So do I think
that the Salone del Mobile is worth the price of the airplane ticket? Yes,
I certainly do. But if you want to come and participate in the
design madness yourself, you better start organizing now. Because a lot of
hotels are fully booked already one year before the next Salone. Of course,
people with a backpack are always welcome to rent my bath tub!

I interviewed the round matryoshka but she had an alibi.

The green aliens didn't speak Dutch, French, English or Italian. So they're still on my list of suspects.

Just like the Polenta cook who left his Polenta pot for half an hour around the time of the murder...

Crazy people enjoying fake rain when there is plenty of real stuff outside, should also be put on the list...

donderdag 19 april 2012

Can you imagine I didn't even notice I was eating in front of an old canal?

A couple of
months ago – before I knew that I wanted to become a Milanese – I was quite
busy becoming a Taoist. I had figured out that life was a bit too hectic and
stressful for me and therefore I was looking for a successful
“escape-from-stress-strategy”. I found a book, written by a certain Theo Fischer,
with the promising title “The art of doing nothing” and started reading. Fischer
explained that a Taoist lives purely in the present, without desires, worries
or stress. A Taoist goes with the flow of life and never shows any resistance. He
pays full concentration to whatever he is doing and doesn’t expect anything
from life which is precisely why he gets so much back from it. Those who wanted
to adopt this philosophy of living themselves, had to learn first of all to
observe their own everyday life with hundred percent, undivided attention. This
sounds easy but actually it’s extremely difficult. You’ll understand what I
mean by trying to answer some of Fischer’s questions. “How did the girl at the
cash register at the supermarket looked like yesterday? What’s the colour of
her eyes? Was she wearing any jewelry or nothing at all?” Most of the time, we
just run through life and absorb almost nothing of what is really happening
around us. Trying to change this, isn’t a piece of cake. Believe me, I tried to
do so for weeks without any result.

Until I
decided to become a Milanese. Now, I walk through streets of Milan which I have
walked a thousand times before and suddenly I discover the most odd and
impressive details I have never noticed before. Like an old canal lock for
instance! At 500 meters from my door step and with a little terrace in front of
it where I even have eaten a tasty salad some months ago! The thing is called Il
Tombon di San Marco and lies in some kind of ditch without a drop of water. I
look at the lock’s big wooden doors and wonder how on earth it’s possible that
I have been eating here without seeing this giant curious thing! Fischer is
right. Most people really are
zombies. Ex-zombie Stevens can confirm this! Luckily, I have a Milanese To-Do
list which can only be executed while keeping your eyes as widely open as the
doors of the Tombon. And not only your eyes! Your imagination as well! Because
how would I otherwise be able to fulfill my 8th Milano task and travel back in
time to see how this city used to look like a little Venice? With lots of
canals and lockkeepers who regulated the water level of the city by handling
the doors of the Tombon? Two months ago, I declared to anyone who was willing
to listen that Milan was about the most boring city of Italy and that there was
absolutely nothing to see. Now that I finally managed to get my eyes open and
started observing attentively like Fischer had asked me to, I actually discover
one treasury after another. Makes you think, doesn’t it? Sometimes in life you
can only reach destination A by walking determinedly to destination B. And sometimes
you can only become a Taoist after giving up on this idea and decide you’d
rather become a Milanese.

donderdag 12 april 2012

I don’t know what you think about La Scala, but
personally, I can’t help but feel disappointed every time I see it. I mean… aren’t
opera buildings supposed to look enormously imposing and impressive and baroque?
Take the opera building of a small city like Antwerp for example. Difficult to
ignore that one. Or its cousin in Brussels. At least as present. But La Scala? A
huge disappointment, I tell you. Some tiny arched gallery and a roof,
nothing more to say about it. And yet people everywhere in the world start
screaming wooooow and waaaaaaaaw from the moment you even only pronounce its
name. I suppose it must have something to do with the inside. The inside of La
Scala has to be immensely spectacular to have earned the place such a prestigious
reputation. Today I’m going to check if my hypothesis is right and I will do so
without paying an expensive entrance ticket. At least, if the seventh point on
my Milanese to-do list isn’t too optimistic.

So how is this supposed to work? It’s very
simple. You just pay a visit to the La Scala museum. This museum is directly
linked to the opera building itself and allows you to see the place where the
fancy opera lovers go and drink their glass of champagne during the break. On
top, you are able to have a look at the inside of the opera house from the
little balconies where people actually sit during the opera. So let’s check it
out. Filled with the highest expectations, I step on one of the balconies and
see… nothing! Or at least very little. Apparently, I arrived in the middle of
the rehearsals of a ballet performance with music of Vasco Rossi. Pinching my
eyes, I try to make something out of the dark contours, but it’s all quite in vain.
According to my guide, the La Scala interior is completely covered with elegant
red velvet and visitors are dazzled by the most beautiful crystal chandeliers
and a giant stage. This giant stage is more or less the only thing I can
clearly distinguish but unfortunately it’s empty! I arrived two minutes too
late and the dancers just went out for lunch break.

I shrug my shoulders and decide to go for a
visit of the rest of the museum. I find the personal piano of Franz Liszt, an
expensive crystal flute and then I hear the name of an old and dear friend of
mine, even if I never saw her face. Malibran. Millions of times, I have walked
through the Rue Malibran in Brussels knowing only that Malibran was a famous
opera singer who had been living in a charming villa on a little square close by.
Now, I find myself suddenly eye to eye with this ardent, Spanish lady to whom
the museum has dedicated a whole room. I look at the busts and paintings of
this opera legend and eavesdrop on a lady who is telling a group of students
the story of Malibran’s tragic life. Apparently, the genius singer used to be a
true rebel and insisted on steering the horses of her own coach (quite a
scandalous thing to do in those days). One day - Malibran was only 28 years old
- a pig escaped and ended up in between the legs of Malibran’s horses causing
her to be catapulted in the air, straight in the arms of Death. I look into the
dark eyes of this free spirited lady and all of a sudden I don’t feel
disappointed anymore. Because even if I continue to ignore what the interior of
La Scala looks like, thanks to this visit, my old unknown lady friend of the
Rue Malibran finally has a face...

dinsdag 10 april 2012

Countless people
standing patiently (or not so patiently) in endless lines waiting for their
turn... Bodyguards in dark suits walking in between the waiting crowd to check
if everyone is behaving the way they should… Ladies with green shirts waving
hysterically and screaming “no picture! no picture!” when I finally arrive
where I wanted to and hand for my camera… Is there anyone of you who knows where the sixth
task on my Milanese to-do list has brought me today?

No, we are
not in Via Monte Napoleone at Prada’s or Gucci’s or Yves Saint Laurent’s. I’m
not in front of some marble temple with ancient and unique pieces of art
either. I’m just standing in a dark, little street at 500 meters of the Duomo
in front of a rather ordinary looking snack bar. The place doesn’t seem to
offer anything special and if it weren’t for all these people trooping together,
you wouldn’t even notice the place was there. I’m standing in front of Luini’s.
Luini’s sells a kind of warm, crescent-shaped bun known by every Milanese even
if the bun doesn’t have anything to do with Milan.

I’m talking
about the panzerotto. A typical snack from the south of Italy which came all
along with Giuseppina Luini in 1949 to the cooler north. If you haven’t got the
faintest idea of what I’m talking about, just picture a small, double folded
fried pizza made out of fritter dough. Sounds kind of greasy, doesn’t it? That’s
because it actually is greasy. But
despite my love of light food and the bad mood I’m in (these nasty bodyguards
and unfriendly sales ladies really got on my nerves), I have to admit that this
panzerotto tastes like more. And despite of all my good (that means boycotting)
intentions, I feel like going back to the hostile battle field again already to
buy me a second one! But this time I want my picture! They can yell at me,
threaten me, they can even send their bodyguards to beat me up, but this girl
isn’t going anywhere without her picture! After all, I also have a shop to
defend! Even if it’s only a blog and even if I’m kind of not selling anything…

﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿

I did it! I have my picture. Now it's time to run as the lady is pushing the alarm button

under the counter already and her colleague in the back is pointing me out to the bodyguards!

woensdag 4 april 2012

My dear
friend Doug just asked me how long it took me to pray 500 paternosters. The
answer is: “waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay less than the time it took me to
put 101 little stickers on a map of Milan to indicate each step on my to-do
list!”. Man, becoming a Milanese is a tough job!

To my sweet
two and a half year old cousin: “You see, Faerinya? Aunty Nathalie likes to
play with little stickers just like you!”

Sometimes life is really full of surprises. Let’s
take today. I get up at 8 a.m. I take a shower, have breakfast, get dressed and
walk freshly out of the door to go and search for the Milanese little brother
of the monster of Loch Ness. Three hours later, I arrive back home unharmed and
relieved at the joyful thought that I’ll burn 10 000 days less in hell! Now you
tell me if that isn’t a cheerful perspective! All thanks to the fifth stage of
my Milano trail. I’ll explain myself a bit better. Today I had to visit the
church of San Marco to spot two images of a horrifying snake-like monster. One
appeared to be on the façade of the elegant little church. Didn’t impress me
much I have to say, but still. The other monster had to be found on a painting
hanging in the church museum which unfortunately was closed today. Not that I
minded much because there are plenty of other interesting things to examine in
this church. Moreover I wanted to reserve me some time to imagine how the
fourteen year old Mozart came to play the organ here for three months under the
select guidance of Giovanni Battista Sammartini. And I also wanted to hide
myself for a moment in some secret corner to listen to the Requiem which Verdi
directed in 1874 in front of a full San Marco church in remembrance of
Alessandro Manzoni (yes, the same from the coffee and chocolate cake on the
little square yesterday).

My thoughts drift away under the impressive
storm of Verdis Dies Irae when
suddenly I see something round lying in a kind of strange, wooden box. I look a
bit closer and find myself staring at somebody who stares back at me in a
provocative way, stressed even more by the cheerful inscription on the box he’s
lying in: “I used to be what you are now”. Scared to death (even if “by the death”
would be more precise) I jump backwards and almost hit the pillar which stands
behind me. I turn around and see something curious decorating the wall. It’s a
golden crucifix accompanied this time by a more optimistic message: “all those
who kiss this crucifix and pray a paternoster get a reduction of 200 days in
hell”. Now I’m not sure at all that a nice, good girl like me will ever end up in
hell, but why would I take the risk? Glancing at the sour look of the
unfriendly skull who continues grinning at me, it doesn’t take me long to make
up my mind. In less than no time I pray 500 paternosters, cover the crucifix
with the same number of kisses and step out of San Marco happy and relieved.
Who knows how many sweet sins I can afford myself now thanks to these 10 000
days of hell reduction!

dinsdag 3 april 2012

It's probably because the mayor forgot to pay the telephone bill, but today the city halls secret telephone system unfortunately doesn't work!

Something secret or exciting or spectacular… that’s what I had to prepare for today in order to execute the fourth task on my Milanese to-do list. That’s because I’ll have to do a phone call at the oldest square of Milan and pass on a memorable message. According to my guide book at least, which sends me back to the Duomo area to discover the medieval city center of Milan. I end up in Via Mercanti where I learn that some 700 years ago this little street used to be a walled square protecting a city hall made of a certain number of arches. The city hall is still there and if you go standing with your face towards the wall in one of its corners you should be able to have a “wireless telephone conversation” with the person who is standing in the opposite corner of the arch just by whispering. Apparently this technique used to serve merchants who secretly agreed on prices during the markets in the hall. Spies as well seem to have benefitted from this ingenious system to communicate the most deadly information in a quick and invisible way.

Since Alessandro and I don’t want to be inferior to our medieval precursors, we have been pondering a whole weekend long about an exciting message to pass on to each other. Today, we are completely ready and head straight to two opposite corners of the city hall. We start whispering and hear... nothing. Maybe we are in the wrong corner and there is only one of them equipped with a well functioning telephone line? Let’s check our guide. Nope, apparently we are exactly where we should be. Talking some louder perhaps? We go for a second try but the opposite corner remains dead silent. Yelling our secret message doesn’t seem an option either since you can hardly consider that a discrete spy job. Some fruitless attempts later, we decide to call it a day and subtract 5 points from our score for Miss Betramis nice Milano guide. We find ourselves a seat on a tiny, little square dedicated to the famous writer Manzoni, not far from the Duomo, and console ourselves with coffee and chocolate cake. “What was your secret message in the end?”, I ask Alessandro after my last bite. My sweetheart looks at me with a disappointed look on his face and answers laconically: “whether you wanted to marry me!” I start laughing and put a kiss on his lips. Not because of the sweet corniness of this question which he had asked me (successfully) already some time before. But because in my own medieval corner, I had happened to whisper exactly the same…

About me

I am a Belgian Master in Gastronomy and I organize cultural and culinary trips and tours in Piedmont. Whether you're looking for someone to give you a general tour in Turin or whether you would love to visit a coffee roastery or winery or just take an Italian cooking class, I can organize it for you. Just contact me and let me know what it is you're looking for and how I can help to make your trip to Piedmont unforgettable!